Clinton flashes anger at NRA on gun issue

AMES, IA -- Two days before the Iowa caucus, former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords and her astronaut husband Mark Kelly helped Hillary Clinton attract her largest crowd yet -- 1,127 people packed a three-story light-filled hall at Iowa State University.

Speaking in front of the large group -- more than three times the size of Clinton's average town hall -- Clinton said it was time for Democrats to make 'common sense' gun safety a voting issue. “The vast majority of Americans agree with Gabby and Mark’s common sense approach,” she said, “but they vote on many things. Whereas those who oppose this mission that Gabby and Mark are leading, they vote only on one issue. That is how they end up intimidating members of Congress.”

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In the past, Clinton has used the gun issue to get to the left of Bernie Sanders, who earlier this month said he now supports repealing gun manufacturer immunity after voting for the measure in 2005. On Saturday, she did not bring up Sanders as she campaigned with Giffords, who has become a leading gun control advocate since suffering a gunshot wound to her head in 2011 while holding a “Congress at your corner” event outside a Tucson grocery store.

The Clinton campaign sent out a memo ahead of her event noting that over his years in Congress, Sanders “has been a consistent vote for the NRA” and voted against the Brady Bill five times, an attack line Clinton launched in the last Democratic debate.

Clinton grew animated when talking about how the NRA is interested in “lowering the age from 14 to let more children legally have guns. What kind of debate is that? I have heard about what happens to children...finding that loaded gun. I’ve heard the stories, I’ve seen the news reports, about the ones who are killed.”

Flashing anger, Clinton yelled, “What is wrong with us!”

Clinton was also joined by her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, who is spending two days traveling with and introducing her mom and is expected to help soften her image.

“I could not be more grateful for the enthusiasm in the room in support of my mom,” Chelsea Clinton, dressed down in jeans and showing off her pregnant belly, said. “I am such an unabashedly deeply biased proud daughter….this is the first presidential I will vote in as a mom.”

Chelsea Clinton, 35, appeared comfortable on the stage, but remained as press-shy as she was eight years ago when she campaigned for her mother -- and had a visceral reaction to reporters.

At a quick stop at a Hy-Vee Saturday morning, where Clinton spoke at an African-American festival called “Ill Make Me a World of Iowa,” a reporter asked Chelsea how she felt about her mother’s prospects on Monday. She looked directly at the reporter and said nothing, according to a pool report that recounted the exchange.